If you want a great book that you can use to teach your co-workers or family about leading during a time of ever changing conditions, read this book, Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions.  It is so easy to understand!

Our Iceberg is Melting Review

The author of the book, John Kotter, found that 90% of organizations were either ignoring relevant changes or trying to adjust in ways that were not meeting their aspirations. This was leading to too much time and money being wasted. So he decided to turn a story about a group of penguins and a melting iceberg to illustrate the process and tools of a successful change.

All of us encounter the basic issues in this story.  Did I mention that it was about penguins and has gorgeous photos!  Few of us know effective ways to deal with these issues. As a manager, it is so important to know how to drive change and how to manage during a time of change.  How do you manage when your future is so uncertain?  Everyone is looking to you to guide them and tell them how to proceed into the future.  And what those who work for you that are so opposed to change.

They ask you, “Why do we have to change to a new computer system and learn to do our jobs in a different way when I have everything down the way it is now?  And will these new systems make do my job for me so there isn’t even a need to keep me at this company anymore?”  Or maybe you are trying to convince your management that by changing a few things, the company could save so much money and time but they refuse to listen to you.

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Getting Buy-In

One of the things I liked about this book is that it showed why it is important to get all team members buy-in before making a change.  If everyone is for the change, it will be so much easier to make because you won’t have anyone dragging their feet.  If there is one person on your team who doesn’t agree with the change, they will make it very hard for everyone else to move forward.  One person really can drag the whole team down and can have such a huge effect on the team.  Always let everyone have their say and offer suggestions to come up with a solution that everyone is behind.

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Stay On Top of Changes

In today’s world, changes are happening faster than ever and this book teaches you 8 steps to produce needed change in any group.  By using a fable, the author make is very easy to read and understand.  My husband had a work retreat and his entire team read this book prior to the retreat.  They then discussed the book at the retreat and successfully figured out ways that they could better approach and welcome change in their organization.

I would highly recommend this book to managers, parents, teachers and anyone who has to deal with group situations.  Even sports teams and high school students would benefit from this reading.  Everyone has to deal with change in their lives and this is a great way book to help learn how to handle and lead through the change.

What inspiring books have you read lately?